Ransomware infections on computers have skyrocketed in recent years, but that doesn’t mean the criminals have forgotten about your smartphones.
Kaspersky Lab released a report on Wednesday demonstrating a four-fold increase in ransomware attacks hitting Android mobile users in just a year, which it called a “worrying trend.”
“The extortion model is here to stay,” Roman Unuchek, mobile security expert at Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement.
“Mobile ransomware emerged as a follow-up to PC ransomware and it is likely that it will be followed-up with malware targeting devices that are very different to a PC or a smartphone.”
In the typical ransomware on PCs, a user’s system is infected and all its files are encrypted. The attacker then displays a message telling them they have a few days to send money or their files will be destroyed. It’s a little different on mobile — much of the malware can’t encrypt other files — but the display of popup messages or the locking of the screen will still ask for money.
